SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that allows you to run your business in a world where the pace of change continues to accelerate. To complement the intelligent technologies and broad set of business processes, we have introduced a new way to adapt classic applications with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2022. It uses the proven SAP Screen Personas technology that thousands of customers rely on to simplify their screens to improve user productivity.
User Interface Adaptation is where you will find the Screen Personas capabilities within the SAP S/4HANA Cloud roadmap.
Simplification improves the user experience
While SAP S/4HANA Cloud delivers a great user experience based on the SAP Fiori design system, some of the classic application screens might include capabilities or fields you do not use in certain roles. The new screen adaptation capabilities introduced in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202 let you simplify these screens to improve usability.
For SAP Fiori apps based on SAPUI5, customers have had the ability to adapt the UI at runtime. With this release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, we add a similar capability for classic applications that allows users to change the screen layout to meet their unique needs. This does not modify the underlying transaction, so you keep the benefits of a standard cloud-based system.
Business users might want to simplify classic applications in their SAP S/4HANA systems for several reasons:
- Boost adoption of business processes that rely on SAP
- Improve user productivity by eliminating keystrokes, tabs, and screens
- Reduce training time with more intuitive screens
- Increase data quality by reducing the opportunity for users to make data entry errors
For example, let’s consider the Outbound Delivery screen. You can use the new Adapt UI capabilities to reduce the number of tabs and eliminate horizontal scrolling in the table. This makes it much easier and faster for a user to find the information they need or make updates to the delivery instructions. The following two images show the before and after screens.
The original Outbound Delivery screen contains many tabs and a very wide table.
The Outbound Delivery flavor simplifies the header, reduces the number of tabs, and eliminates horizontal scrolling in the table.
SAP Screen Personas powers the Adapt UI for classic applications
For the past seven years SAP Screen Personas has allowed 1000s of customers to simplify SAP GUI transactions to improve the user experience. Organizations of all sizes have streamlined transactions in sales and distribution, purchasing, plant maintenance, facilities management, field service, time entry, customer support, master data management, quality management, and other core business processes. Based on requests from IT professionals planning their migration to the cloud, we decided to integrate SAP Screen Personas functionality into SAP S/4HANA Cloud. You access this functionality through the Adapt UI button in the user action menu.
Access Screen Personas capabilities using the Adapt UI function in the user action menu.
Simplifying screens has two steps.
- A key user edits the original screen to create a flavor (version of the screen modified with Screen Personas for a specific role).
- The administrator assigns the flavor to the role.
Access the flavor editor through the Adapt UI function and gain access to a simple drag and drop interface that allows you to hide, move, or rename fields, merge information from multiple tabs, or automate certain actions to improve usability.
SAP Screen Personas works for private cloud and on-premises systems too
This capability is also available for SAP S/4HANA private cloud and on-prem customers. The only difference is that you need to install the SAP Screen Personas add-on, which is fast, easy, and requires no additional license.
Krists Magons has created a guide on getting started with UI adaptation for classic applications in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
I am so proud of all my colleagues in SAP Screen Personas, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and adjacent organizations who all worked together to bring this new functionality to our customers.
On behalf of everyone involved in this project, Peter Spielvogel.
